Today was the intro to poetry at the college. I am not sure that my class feels any less afraid of poetry than they used to. But at least they’ve heard/read some poems and have an idea what they mean.
The problem with poetry is that sometimes you have to read it more than once. Sometimes you have to know some history. Such as Who is Brother Lawrence? in order to read Browning’s “Soliloquoy in a Spanish Cloister.†Some archaic (old fashioned) language. What’s a mistress? (wife) What’s a maid? (virgin) …
Next week we’ll be reading another 12 poems, which they should already have covered in their own reading. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
We talked about possible final exam questions from the poems we read today.
And, because I didn’t think we got off Easter weekend, I have 2 sets of papers from each person to read and grade.
I had someone show up today who has been absent the last four classes. She hasn’t turned in or asked for the information for the last two papers. Why is she still coming to class? Of course, I had two folks show up who haven’t been to class in weeks. They did come with some of the papers though. One guy is missing the last paper and the one before it and he didn’t turn in his rewrite for his research paper. Sometimes you have to wonder. Wht are these people thinking?
Oh well.